Epic Mix – Skiiers and Snowboards Social Media Dream

The skiing industry – fairly or not – gets criticized often for being stodgy, slow, and resistant to change, but that may be changing.

Vail Resorts’ new EpicMix application is an intriguing release on various levels, not least for how it has the potential to push not just skiing but participation sports in general to new technological frontiers.

EpicMix has the ability to track your physical accomplishments, similar to Nike+, and then combine it with the community experience of location-based social media, similar to applications like FourSquare or Gowalla. The application is integrated with Facebook and Twitter. It even has weather reports so that you can find the ideal time to ride. The app officially launches November 5 at Keystone.

Watch the Video here:

There are a number of other ski apps, and even a few launched by specific areas or resort operators, like Snowbird in Utah. But based on the demos Vail Resorts debuted this week, EpicMix goes far past those in terms of functionality. It’s the first to combine the physical performance with social media elements, and it offers a peek at what might lie in the future for participation sports.

This will be a fun and useful app for vacationing guests and weekend warriors. But as for me I will be using my http://www.SkiPassDefender.com to protect my RFID info. When given the choice between tracked or untracked, I prefer to ski UNTRACKED